Captain McBride gunning for his third NLL Champions Cup title as Roughnecks meet Rochester

Rita Mingo, For the Calgary Herald05.20.2014

Calgary Roughnecks defenceman Andrew McBride provided some pressure as he checked Edmonton Rush forward Robert Church during Game 1 of the NLL West final series against Edmonton last week at the Saddledome.

He’s the common denominator in the Calgary Roughnecks’ championship history.

Andrew McBride was a fresh-faced sophomore when the team won the trophy in 2004, then five years later he helped them win it again. Now, after another five-year interval, he captains a squad that will battle for the Champions’ Cup for the third time.

“I’m going to have conversations with every single guy and reinforce why we’ve been successful,” McBride explained. “I think that as a leader you have to motivate your teammates to bring their best qualities at this time. I’m going to try to be the guy that’s the calming influence, but at the same time the guy that’s been there before who understands what each guy needs to do, myself included, to be successful.”

The Riggers take on Rochester in the two-game National Lacrosse League final, beginning on Saturday night at the Scotiabank Saddledome. The two Calgary sides that achieved the ultimate success in this league were, in McBride’s estimation, very different.

“I think 2004 was more of a sporadic run. We weren’t heavy favourites, we peaked at the right time,” he related. “We had a ragtag bunch of guys, but we also had a lot of veteran guys. Once we got that first game in San Jose, when we got over that first hurdle, we started to gain that confidence. And you could see the older guys step up and say ‘hey, this is a special group and let’s go ahead and do that’. I think Curtis Palidwor was another reason; our goaltending was absolutely phenomenal, and definitely a common theme in the three years of the championship.

“In 2009, we pretty much smashed everyone. We had confidence right from the get-go that it would be our year. We played with that swagger. The Western final, it was 14-0 at one point and I remember looking at Devan Wray and said ‘There’s no way. This thing is over. We’re going to the final’. It was the Roughnecks against the world.”

Each team also had its defining leader. In 2004, it was Tracey Kelusky.

“Trace was not only a vocal guy but a guy that led by example,” McBride said, “a guy that would carry the team on his back. He was an offensive superstar, a guy that everyone knew would get the ball and teams couldn’t do anything about that. When you have a guy like that, it really rallies the troops.

“In 2009, it was a guy like Josh Sanderson. He was the one that everyone looked up to. He’s going to be a Hall of Fame player. He brought such a level of professionalism. Even to this day, I haven’t played with a guy that hated losing more. We never wanted to celebrate the culture of losing and I think we’ve tried to do a really good job of that this year. That’s what you want to teach the young guys and that’s definitely a lesson I learned from those two guys.”

Which brings us to 2014 and a squad that has proved to be the best in the West when the chips are down.

“I feel it’s a completely different entity,” McBride offered. “This year we’ve had a lot of younger guys step up and really contribute. Not necessarily just first-year guys, like Karsen Leung and Garrett McIntosh, but second- and third-year players like Dan MacRae, Daryl Veltman, who’s been around but has really made a difference. Having that feeling when we lost to Washington (in the 2013 West final), that was a constant reminder to the veterans on the team that we don’t want to experience that feeling again. You saw in the Edmonton game, there was no quit. Compared to teams in the past, this team has really risen to the challenge when we needed to and it’s been a steady climb to the top.”

You need look no further than number 37 as to the leader of this group.

“Me and Dan were talking,” McBride said, recalling last weekend, “us being down 11-2, and every shift I would say something positive to the guys: ‘Great job. That’s a great offensive shift. Way to get that loose ball.’ Danny said to me when we were watching that Rochester game, he said he was thinking in his mind ‘Just shut up. We’re playing terrible. I don’t want to hear it. Just be quiet’. But as a leader, you really have to show that you believe in your teammates. If you for one second show that you’re doubting, it’s going to become contagious real quick.”

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Captain McBride gunning for his third NLL Champions Cup title as Roughnecks meet Rochester

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